DWP admits multiple fraud system failures

9 hours of disruption in 2010

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A Department for Work and Pensions minister has disclosed that the department's Fraims system has experienced numerous instances of disruption since January.

According to a parliamentary written answer published on 7 April 2010, the DWP has logged over nine hours of disruptions to the Fraud Referral and Intervention Management System (Fraims) from January to March.

According to a list published in the written answer, the system has been disrupted 10 times in six periods. DWP minister Jim Knight told Labour MP Jim Cousins that no disruptions had occurred with either the electronic records management system or the customer information system during those three months.

"The question came about first because I have sources who have informed me that HP, which manages the (Fraims) system, is performing quite badly and the DWP is trying to cover it up," Cousins told GC News.

Cousins said in asking the question about the £65m system he was hoping to shed light on both the system's failure and the DWP's attempted "cover-up".

A spokesperson for the DWP said: "The Fraims system had six instances of disruption between 22 January 2010 and 20 March 2010. These incidents were minor in nature and each was fixed by our suppliers in no more than one hour.

"As part of our ongoing work to analyse the cause of any problems, the problem was identified as a system capacity issue caused by increased usage. An increase to system capacity was developed and tested before being implemented on 20 March."

The spokesperson added: "Since 20 March the system has been stable with no reported disruption."